If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that’s more than just entertainment-w hich is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people.

One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren't happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others.

As an attorney, I assure you the law isn't a line engraved in marble, immovable and unchangeable through the centuries. Rather the law is like a string, fixed at both ends but with a great deal of play in it very loose, the line of the law so you can stretch it this way or that, rearrange the arc of it so you are nearly always short of blatant theft or cold-blooded murder safely on the right side. That's a daunting thing to realize but true.

Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along.

Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble.

If wishes were filet mignon, we'd always eat well at dinner

If I waited until I felt creative, I would never have had a career. I long ago learned that a day that starts out badly, when nothing comes out on the page or comes out wrong, can suddenly turn into a good day a few hours later, when suddenly everything starts to click. The brain can be cajoled into being creative.